Do Materialism and Evolution Theory Undermine Science?

[PixyMisa]

What is this "entity" if not the body?

A process. As Darat says, a gerund.

Are you claiming that the body has non-physical aspects?

NO.

How many times do we need to explain this to you?

The answer to the question is actually quite straightforward, as you would know if you actually understood the books you claimed earlier to have read...

We understand these books just fine.

The brain creates a sense of self from identifying with narratives that is inconsistent with reality.

No.

The programme may be considered either disfunctional, created for other functions than understanding self, or influenced by non-genetic replicators - depending on your orientation or who you read.

No.

But one thing is clear - the model of self the brain constructs through narratives is inconsistent with reality.

Are you dead? No? Then no.

Nick

How do you know?

 

[rocketdodger]

Personally, I do not believe you are creating your own reality. It is being created for you perhaps but I do not believe you are creating it.

Issues with determinism regardless, I find meme theory more likely here. As soon as the human brain developed the capacity to imitate so inevitably another replicator, aside of the gene, was born. We now have these big cumbersome brains highly adept at storing and transmitting memes and driven to do so by what Blackmore terms "the selfplex" - a pernicious memeplex. It's a variety of memes co-existing in a frequently uneasy relationship and maintaining their control over the organism's activity through the organism accepting that they represent "itself."

It would be good to untangle which aspects of the narrative self are created genetically and which memetically.

Nick

Nick -- you are obviously a chatbot. I have decided.

Because the format of all your posts is exactly the same.

1) Briefly reference an idea X in the previous post, such as "Personally I don't believe X..."

2) Immediately vomit an entire paragraph of undechiperable gibberish that references Susan Blackmore or Daniel Dennet and terms they "coined," which is in no conceivable way linked to the idea X, and invariably begins with the sentiment "Instead I think..." or "I find it more likely..." or "Rather..."

3) End with an attempt to change the topic of conversation to something you can post more gibberish on, such as "It would be good to..." or "I really think we need to..." or "We should really...."

 

[Nick227]

A process. As Darat says, a gerund.

"Floundering is one way to try and stop drowning." In this sentence the word "floundering" is a gerund - a noun created from the present participle of a verb.

How is the word "my" in the phrase "my body" a gerund? Kindly explain.

We understand these books just fine.

I genuinely see no evidence of that. How about we go through actual passages from both writers on the concept of "narrative selfhood" and take a good thorough look?

Nick

 

[Nick227]

Nick -- you are obviously a chatbot. I have decided.

Because the format of all your posts is exactly the same.

1) Briefly reference an idea X in the previous post, such as "Personally I don't believe X..."

2) Immediately vomit an entire paragraph of undechiperable gibberish that references Susan Blackmore or Daniel Dennet and terms they "coined," which is in no conceivable way linked to the idea X, and invariably begins with the sentiment "Instead I think..." or "I find it more likely..." or "Rather..."

3) End with an attempt to change the topic of conversation to something you can post more gibberish on, such as "It would be good to..." or "I really think we need to..." or "We should really...."

Well, in writing that post it did strike me that the second paragraph, whilst tied to the first, would require quite a bit of additional background in the reader's mind for the connection to be self-evident. So, fair comment. I don't use the same format so often though. There are the occasional tangents, but my developer has the tangent function pretty well set to normal human standards now, I think.

Nickbot

eta: if you ask me Pixy is a far better candidate for a chatbot than me. Interject with "no" or "nope" every five words or so and then announce "it's a process" repeatedly if you meet resistance. I can write out his response to this post...

.........................

if you ask me Pixy is a far better candidate for a chatbot than me

No

Interject with "no" or "nope" every five words or so

No

and then announce "it's a process"

It is a process

repeatedly if you meet resistance.

It is a process.

.............................

Memetics, huh?

 

[rocketdodger]

How about we go through actual passages from both writers on the concept of "narrative selfhood" and take a good thorough look?

We already tried that.

You posted a passage, I asked you to specifically show why anything from the passage was relevant to the issue you claimed it addressed, and you still haven't answered.

Go ahead and try again.

Find a passage from either Dennet or Blackmore that shows why the definition "my body" == "the body which supports the entity fabricating this statement" is invalid.

 

[Nick227]

We already tried that.

You posted a passage, I asked you to specifically show why anything from the passage was relevant to the issue you claimed it addressed, and you still haven't answered.

Go ahead and try again.

Find a passage from either Dennet or Blackmore that shows why the definition "my body" == "the body which supports the entity fabricating this statement" is invalid.

We can just use a chunk of the same one...

Like the biological self, this psychological or narrative self is yet another abstraction, not a thing in the brain, but still a remarkably robust and almost tangible attractor of properties, the "owner of record" of whatever items and features are lying about unclaimed. Who owns your car? You do. Who owns your clothes? You do. Then who owns your body? You do! When you say

This is my body

you certainly aren't taken as saying

This body owns itself.

But what can you be saying, then? If what you say is neither a bizarre and pointless tautology (this body is its owner, or something like that) nor the claim that you are an immaterial soul or ghost puppeteer who owns and operates this body the way you own and operate your car, what else could you mean?" - Consciousness Explained p418

You seem to be advocating that the answer to Dennett's question is the "bizarre and pointless tautology" he mentions.

Either that or "the entity fabricating this statement", as you put it, is conceived of as being something other than the body.

Nick

 

[Nick227]

RD,

Here's how Susan Blackmore starts her chapters on selfhood in her main work on consciousness...

"Questions about the nature of consciousness are intimately bound up with those about the nature of self because it seems as though there must be someone having the experience, that there cannot be experiences without an experiencer. Our experiencing self seems to be at the centre of everything we are aware of at a given time, and to be continuous from one moment to the next. In other words, it seems to have both unity and continuity. The problems start when you ask what kind of thing that experiencer might be.

In everyday language we talk unproblematically about our 'self.' 'I' got up this morning, 'I' like muesli for breakfast, 'I' can hear the robin singing, 'I' am an easy-going sort of person, 'I' remember meeting you last week, 'I' want to be an engine driver when I grow up. It seems that we not only think of this self as a single thing but we accord it all sorts of attibutes and capabilities. In ordinary usage, the self is the subject of our experiences, an inner agent who carries out actions and makes decisions, a unique personality, and the source of desires, opinions, hopes and fears. This self is 'me'; it is the reason why anything matters in my life.

That this apparently natural way of thinking about ourselves is problematic has been recognised for millenia. In the sixth century BC the Buddha challenged contemporary thinking with his doctrine of annatta or no-self. He claimed that the self is just a name or a label given to something that does not really exist; a suggestion that seems as hard to understand and accept today as it was then." - Consciousness, An Introduction Ch 7, p 94-95, italics author's own

I'd recommend the whole chapter, plus the subsequent two, to you. We can continue into the various models of selfhood that have arisen and their issues if you like. It's fascinating stuff.

Nick

 

[rocketdodger]

You seem to be advocating that the answer to Dennett's question is the "bizarre and pointless tautology" he mentions.

If you happen to think the brain and body are the same entity, then yes. And in that case, it does become a pointless tautology.

But there is no rule that states one must consider brain and body to be the same entity. Which is why Dennet does not show that definition to be invalid -- or even "bizarre and pointless."

 

[Nick227]

If you happen to think the brain and body are the same entity, then yes. And in that case, it does become a pointless tautology.

But there is no rule that states one must consider brain and body to be the same entity. Which is why Dennet does not show that definition to be invalid -- or even "bizarre and pointless."

So you have never said "my brain?"

Nick

 

[rocketdodger]

RD,

Here's how Susan Blackmore starts her chapters on selfhood in her main work on consciousness...



I'd recommend the whole chapter, plus the subsequent two, to you. We can continue into the various models of selfhood that have arisen and their issues if you like. It's fascinating stuff.

Nick

Once again, Nick -- how does any of that invalidate the 3rd person definition of "my body" that I gave?

 

[Nick227]

Once again, Nick -- how does any of that invalidate the 3rd person definition of "my body" that I gave?

I quoted Blackmore in the hope that it might help to persuade you to consider that the issue of understanding self is well accepted as not being simple.

You have yet to deal with the problem of phrases like "my body." Thus far we have "gerund" and "it refers to the brain." I believe it's fair to say that anyone with any background in this area is unlikely to be impressed by these attempts but, of course, feel free to dispute this.

I can only restate my case - It is well acknowledged that the model of self created by thinking is acutely problematic. This place may actually be one of the few philosophical forums where this is not well accepted. Certainly, over on Richard Dawkins Forum, it would not take so long to get to first base.

Nick

 

[PixyMisa]

"Floundering is one way to try and stop drowning." In this sentence the word "floundering" is a gerund - a noun created from the present participle of a verb.

How is the word "my" in the phrase "my body" a gerund? Kindly explain.

Self is merely a name for being, that is, the gerund of the infinitive to be.

Your problem is that you have a fundamental misconception of what materialism is. You think it only allows for nows. In reality, it only allows for verbs.

"I" is not a noun. "I" is a gerund.

To put it another way, it is what it does. If it does not, it is not.

 

[rocketdodger]

So you have never said "my brain?"

Nick

I have. What of it? That is clearly a tautology if you are a materialist. What is wrong with tautologies?

 

[PixyMisa]

I have. What of it? That is clearly a tautology if you are a materialist.

I'd disagree.

A program can refer to the hardware it is running on as its hardware; the hardware is not the program.

Same with my brain.

 

[Nick227]

Self is merely a name for being, that is, the gerund of the infinitive to be.

Your problem is that you have a fundamental misconception of what materialism is. You think it only allows for nows. In reality, it only allows for verbs.

"I" is not a noun. "I" is a gerund.

To put it another way, it is what it does. If it does not, it is not.

How does this deal with the issue of "my body?" To what does the reference refer? As usual you are hurling goalposts about with gay abandon.

As to 'I' being a gerund (!)...how would you rephrase, for example, the statements Blackmore quotes making use of this gerund?

'I' got up this morning, 'I' like muesli for breakfast, 'I' can hear the robin singing, 'I' am an easy-going sort of person, 'I' remember meeting you last week, 'I' want to be an engine driver when I grow up.

Can you rewrite them with this gerund?

Nick

 

[PixyMisa]

How does this deal with the issue of "my body?" To what does the reference refer?

To restate the bleedin' obvious, yet again:

"My" here refers to the relationship of a process to its physical substrate.

As usual you are hurling goalposts about with gay abandon.

You're confused. I haven't changed my position at all.

 

[Nick227]

To restate the bleedin' obvious, yet again:

"My" here refers to the relationship of a process to its physical substrate

As I see it, in order to do that the process would have to recognise itself as a process. You are constructing the process as referring to itself, as a process, when actually a process cannot refer to itself. It is merely happening, in response to other activities.

In addition, the majority of the uses of the terms "I" or "my" clearly presuppose the existence of fixed material referents. Feel free to re-phrase the statements Blackmore includes to prove me wrong.

When I originally asked the question, I added "What is the sense of it?" because the issue is not "what may selfhood be constructed to mean," but "How does it seem? How does it appear?"

Nick

 

[PixyMisa]

As I see it, in order to do that the process would have to recognise itself as a process.

Sure. Which I do, clearly, because I just said so.

I submit that this is not the case, as is demonstrated by the majority of uses of the terms "I" or "my."

You can't get there from here, Nick.

Feel free to re-phrase the statements Blackmore includes to prove me wrong.

It's not merely a question of being wrong, though of course you are indeed wrong. It's a question of abject pointlessness. You're trying to prove something about the nature of reality by arguing about the terminology used to describe it.

That trick never works.

When I originally asked the question, I added "What is the sense of it?" because the issue is not "what may selfhood be constructed to mean," but "How does it seem? How does it appear?"

Who the hell cares?

Susan Blackmore's apt description of consciousness as an illusion does not mean that consciousness is not real, or that it is not material. Her point is that consciousness is not what it may trivially appear to be.

What it is, is a process. Not a thing. A does, not an is.

A gerund.

 

[Dancing David]

My is the common referent to the unique physiacl body that is part of an individual process called consciousness.

the issue of posseion in semantics is part of the confision, but Nick will make mountains out of the arcahic meanings in words.

The body exists, they comes in seperate bodies. No one owns them but by social convention they are assumed to own themselves.

Doesn't mean that they do, doesn't mean that they don't.

By living in the moment and with some consideration of the future state of the ephemeral body one can live an uncomplicated life. (If the one chooses to do so or is capable of such a choice.)

 

[Nick227]

It's not merely a question of being wrong, though of course you are indeed wrong. It's a question of abject pointlessness. You're trying to prove something about the nature of reality by arguing about the terminology used to describe it.

That trick never works.


Who the hell cares?

Susan Blackmore's apt description of consciousness as an illusion does not mean that consciousness is not real, or that it is not material. Her point is that consciousness is not what it may trivially appear to be.

What it is, is a process. Not a thing. A does, not an is.

A gerund.

I perceive a fairly major problem with this apparent viewpoint of yours.

Thinking does not refer to itself, rather it refers to the neural substrate from which it arises. It is an expression of the state of the neural substrate at that time.

Thus, the thought "my body" does not refer to that actual thought, but rather it reflects the state of the neural substrate from which it emerges. To believe it reflects the thought itself would not be consistent with materialism. In fact it would be idealism.

Thus the perspective you are advancing is clearly idealistic. Considering the phrase "my body" to be a gerund is to assume that the thought itself is self-aware, that it is describing its own relationship to the substrate. That's not materialism.

Nice try, though.

Nick